Oh dear… it seems semi-scripted reality television is becoming a totally scripted movie! Fox Searchlite has just acquired the rights to untitled pitch that very closely resembles the plot of Basketball Wives!

It seems master puppeteer executive producerShaunie O’Neal is interested in spreading her wings into the movie making biz and has been working with famed writer-producer Tracey Edmonds to produce a film that draws “loosely from the lives of O’Neal and some of her friends.”

The idea centers aroung a young woman who follows her boyfriend to Miami after he is drafted into the NBA. “Thrust into the world of professional sports, she meets and learns from the sisterhood of players’ wives and learns from their trials and tribulations.” Gee – where have we heard that story before?

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“The beauty of a feature film is that we’ll have the ability to dig much deeper into the stories and characters that come from this very colorful world and create a very juicy action packed narrative,” Tracey Edmonds told Variety about the experience.

She adds that Shaunie originally approached her with the idea via Twitter.

Good thing Shaunie isn’t putting all her eggs in one basket and is broadening her career prospects, because amidst the controversially violent season the public and the media are in uproar. As a result of several celebrities speaking-out against the behavior of certain personalities during the course of filming, as well as the petition which now has around 200,000 signatures, ratings are starting to drop for the once untouchable series.

Last week, Basketball Wives received only 1.75 million viewers, according to The Futon Critic. While those are super high numbers – it’s not compared to the season premiere which drew over 2M viewers. And most significantly numbers are dropping weekly. Only two weeks ago the show was averaging about 1.87 viewers!

In fact, even academia is getting involved in protesting the series! Dr. Boyd Watkins, a Syracuse University professor, has compared the show to the totally tasteless Jerry Springer Show! Basketball Wives “should consider cutting to the chase and rebranding themselves for either mud wrestling or pay-per-view street fighting,” Watkins seethed.

“Without question, ‘BBW’ has become the new ‘Jerry Springer Show.’ Instead of chanting ‘Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!’ when a fight starts, we can chant Shaunie’s name instead. When it comes to trashy programming of the 21st century, VH1 has it locked, and we are all part of the problem.” WOW!

[Photo Credit: WENN.com]

WOULD YOU WATCH A BASKETBALL WIVES MOVIE? HAVE YOU STOPPED WATCHING DUE TO THE VIOLENCE? IS BBW THE NEW JERRY SPRINGER OR IS DR. WATKINS’ ASSESSMENT TOO HARSH?